UFC 118 REVIEW PART 4: THE MAIN CARD

DIAZ VS. DAVIS

This match is a real treat for those who like straight-up stand up brawls. And I do mean "brawls", and not "fights", especially considering that it's Nate Diaz we're talking about here. Diaz, who normally competes at lightweight, moves up to welterweight for this bout. Will the increased weight be a disadvantage to him, will it be the other way around, or will it just not make a difference? Considering that he looks much larger than Davis, I'd say he still had the advantage in this fight.



Diaz has also been talking a lot of smack against his opponent leading up to this fight, leaving "The Irish Hand Grenade" to be exceedingly motivated. Diaz even carried his smack talking in the cage, as he often does, and paid for it early in the first round when Davis capitalized on the opening and dropped him with a punch. Unfortunately for Davis, Diaz quickly recovered and used his incredible reach advantage to out-strike his opponent.

At one point late in the first round, Diaz cuts open Davis' right eyelid with a glancing punch, and it is one nasty injury. Seriously, when Davis had a close up in between rounds, that cut looked extraordinarily large and gross. Davis continued on, though, but it was obvious that the cut was bothering him throughout the rest of the fight. That, and he just could never properly get through Diaz's incredible reach advantage over him. He was constantly getting out-struck.

Diaz locks in an Arm Triangle on Davis in the third round and pouts him to sleep. Extremely impressive win for Diaz, especially against a very tough opponent in Marcus Davis. Diaz walks away with a win and says he'll return to the lightweight division for a shot at the title, and Davis walks with an extremely busted up face.

MAIA VS. MIRANDA

BJJ black belt Demian Maia's wizardry on the ground was the tale of this fight, as every time he managed to take Mario Miranda down (and he did this A LOT), he would control him effortlessly. "Super Mario", though, is a BJJ black belt himself, and escaped any and all ground and pound and submission attempts by Maia, at least eventually. After standing up, though, it was only a matter of time until Maia managed to take him to the ground again. Rinse and repeat for three 5-minute rounds.

Not the most exciting fight in UFC history, to be sure. But you really can't fault Maia this time around. He listened to the critics after UFC 112 and tried to make this fight exciting and finish quickly. Every time he wound up in control o the ground, he tried his best to perform some effective ground and pound and transition to a successful submission. But Miranda's no slouch on the ground as well, and despite the fact that he was still mostly dominated from start to finish, he was able to escape all of Maia's best tricks.

Still, though, Maia wound up with the eventual unanimous decision. Miranda did his best, but wasn't quite "super" enough for this fight.

Check out more amazing photos of UFC 118 over at the official UFC website!